Wedding planner: job description

It is quite common for wedding planners to be self-employed from an early stage in their career, so building your own business is one route you might take.

What does a wedding planner do? | Typical employers | Qualifications and training | Key skills

Wedding planners support couples and their families with the organisation, hiring, purchasing and management involved with planning a successful wedding. For some clients, they will only be involved in specific aspects of the process, such as hiring caterers and entertainment or supporting on the day itself. For others, wedding planners will be responsible for organising almost every detail.

Typical responsibilities of a wedding planner include:

• forging strong relationships with clients and discovering exactly what they want from their wedding and from you as the wedding planner
• using expert knowledge about weddings to guide clients, and your creative flair to come up with new ideas for them
• building knowledge of – and relationships with – suppliers (such as caterers and florists)
• booking suppliers and buying anything needed, which often involves attending wedding fairs
• being available and providing support on the day of the wedding.

Typical employers

It is quite common for wedding planners to be self-employed from an early stage in their career, so building your own business is one route you might take. Alternatively, there are wedding planning companies, hotels/hotel companies or other wedding venues that may hire staff in the role.

You could find positions on job websites, particularly those specialising in hospitality roles. Alternatively, you might search for vacancies on the websites of wedding planning companies. If there are none advertised and you’re interested in the employer, it’s a good idea to send a speculative application .

Qualifications and training

You do not need any specific qualifications to begin your wedding planning career, although there are event management courses and qualifications that might help you to build up your skills set and confidence in this industry.

A proven aptitude for planning events is important to recruiters, however. In order to gain a more junior role, such as assistant wedding planner, you could demonstrate this aptitude through work experience and/or planning events for people you know.

In order to progress to the position of wedding planner, you will typically need to have experience specific to weddings. Some employers ask for two years’ experience of organising weddings. So, one route you might take is spending two years in a role such as assistant wedding planner before progressing.

Key skills

• emotional intelligence
• strong communication skills – including the ability to build a rapport with people through verbal and written communication
• organisation and time management skills
• aptitude for influencing and persuading others
• negotiation skills
• creativity
• problem solving
• commercial awareness
• adaptability – including the ability to change approach when situations change
• flexibility – including willingness to do longer hours on some days
• attention to detail.